Issue 2/Mapping the Cameras
Parallel Action
Last issue, we called mapping issues one of the most impactful things a Circle can do in reference to Logos Circle / London’s gapmap.uk project. To illustrate this point, here is what one map did to a surveillance company.
Flock Safety notoriously sells police departments cameras that read the number plates of passing cars. This has been criticised heavily by watchdogs and concerned citizens as another instance of mass surveillance, warrantless tracking, and a lack of data privacy safeguards. In response Will Freeman, a resident of Huntsville, Alabama, launched DeFlock, an open map built on OpenStreetMap where anyone can log a plate camera they have spotted. The code is open source, and 52 people sponsoring Freeman on GitHub cover the running costs. When Flock sent him a cease-and-desist over the name, the Electronic Frontier Foundation answered on his behalf.
Once the cameras were on a map, this gave people a clear data point to push back on, which led to them turning up at council meetings with the count for their own town.
On 10 September, the council of Kosciusko County, Indiana, voted 5 to 0 to stop county money going to plate cameras. The council had no power to cancel the contract, so on 22 September the county commissioners did it themselves, 3 to 0, after the county attorney concluded that “no valid contract was ever formed.” The county took down 31 cameras and dropped $141,000 in payments due in 2027 and 2028. In Lynchburg, Virginia, the city ended its contract for 15 plate cameras and 55 gunshot detectors on 3 September.
The map now also tracks the towns that have dropped Flock: 153 by early September, up from 95 in July, proving that information is power.